Archive: Opinions

EditorialWhen I worked for a large national corporation the catch phrase was, "We are all about change."  I always made it a point to add, "And street busking is all about spare change!" 

I watched VPs come and VPs go, and the one thing they all wanted to do was to make their mark on our unit with a drastic change, evidently to impress their superiors.  The thing was that such changes weren't always for the better.  Because these VPs were new they didn't necessarily pay attention to what was working in the old way of doing things.  Since this is an online company we could track our results in clicks, a very tangible measure.  I watched our numbers get worse and worse with each new vice president.

Each year we were tasked (that's a corporate-speak word made up by MBAs) to submit a plan for the year.  But after a few years I spent less energy developing mine, because these impressive VPs would change our direction just about every quarter.  So we never actually got to complete a one year plan, which was often confusing to managers and employees.  And customers.

My take-away (another corporate-speak phrase) was that change for the sake of change is bad, unless your goal is to make a VP look terrific just long enough for him to be assigned to the next plum assignment.  In fact if THAT is your measure of success, our little piece of corporate America was among the most successful ever.  But those of us who were left to pick up the pieces and deal with the next corporate wizard never really felt that love.

So you will forgive me if I am suspicious when a politician tells me that the people want change.  My first question is, which people?  And then there's that change thing.

I'm not advocating that we only elect incumbents because they are there.  But I do think that the idea of change should be locked in with the key things that most people want changed in their lives.  At its root I'd say that most people in our town would like taxes to be lower in a real sense.  That means not raising real estate valuations willy-nilly so that so-called lower taxes cost more actual money.  And it means responsible budgets from our elected officials.

It's budget time for the Town of Lansing, and I think it is fair to say that the Town Board (going back as long as I've lived here, which is about 20 years) is pretty responsible when it comes to budgeting.  They and the town staff wish for things, but they also worry over that budget like a mother hen.  Town taxes stay at or below the rise in the cost of living, and when you add up how much we get from them it is pretty amazing.  The town motto might well be 'Lansing Gets More From Less.'

Other municipalities could take a lesson from ours, and I especially wish the State government would.  But we still live in one of the highest taxed states in the country, and that makes it harder and harder to get along.   And while the Star property tax rebate is a nice gesture, it isn't making that much of a dent in what New York and the municipalities get from us in  property taxes, sales taxes, corporate taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, gas taxes...  Add health care to that and it's a wonder anybody can make a living.

So there are two kinds of change I want from my elected officials.  I want to know their one year plan for lowering my taxes.  And I want to know their plan for bringing more of the taxes I do pay back into my community.  By George, if they can satisfactorily answer those questions we'll have the most important kind of change: spare change.

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